EXETER — The Exeter Board of Canvassers worked all day Tuesday to verify signatures on petitions to recall most members of the Town Council. They got through about a fourth of the petitions.

EXETER — The Exeter Board of Canvassers worked all day Tuesday to verify signatures on petitions to recall most members of the Town Council. They got through about a fourth of the petitions.

At about 2 p.m., Canvasser Mary B. Hall said that unless the remaining petitions show a different percentage of disqualified signatures, “I would say we’re looking at a recall.”

The signatures were collected by Exeter residents who disagreed with four council members’ passing a resolution to, as the signature-collectors said, “opt out of Exeter’s constitutional responsibilities to issue concealed carry permits.”

“Arrogance, nothing but arrogance,” said Lance Edwards, describing his perception of the council members’ attitude about changing the way people get permits to carry a concealed weapon.

The residents seeking recall, he said, agree with the current system of the town clerk issuing permits after the gun owner gets all the approvals required by the attorney general’s office and after background checks are done by the FBI and the National Instant Criminal Background Check.

The petitioners need signatures from 10 percent of the registered voters. The rural town, with a population of only 6,425, has 4,995 registered voters as of Aug. 27.

Edwards said 496 signatures were needed (based on the number registered in the last election) and that 605 had been collected for each of the four recall petitions.

Standing outside the canvassers room, Council Vice President William Monahan called it “a long, tedious day.” He was taking a break from observing the signature verification process on behalf of himself and the other members facing recall. They are Council President Arlene B. Hicks, Robert Johnson and Calvin A. Ellis, all Democrats. The one council member not facing recall is independent Raymond A. Morrissey Jr.

“I don’t believe the town clerk should be issuing a concealed weapons permit because in all the other cities and towns, it’s done by the police department,” Monahan said. “Seeing that Exeter does not have a police department, the responsibility falls upon the town clerk.”

The Rhode Island Police Chiefs Association this year sought to have state law changed so that the state attorney general’s office would have sole jurisdiction over the issuing of permits to carry concealed weapons. In a May 1 letter to the House Judiciary Committee chairwoman, Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin wrote that he supported the chiefs’ effort and that “this is in the best interest of public safety.”

Kilmartin wrote that having the two systems “had led to inconsistency in the permitting process and has serious ramifications on public safety.”

Under state law, a person who got a permit to carry a concealed firearm from the city or town is not subject to a seven-day waiting period for the purchase of a gun, Kilmartin stated. A person who seeks the permit through the attorney general’s office is subject to the seven-day wait.

“This is a very important distinction,” Kilmartin said in the letter, because the waiting period “is necessary for the proper administration of the … national instant background check at the time of purchase.”

And, Kilmartin noted, permits to carry obtained through a city or town are not entered into a database, while permits through the attorney general’s office are, he said. If a person permitted in one town is stopped in another, the officer making the stop would be able to verify the person’s right to carry only if the permit was through the attorney general’s office.

“It is in the best interests of the safety of both the permit holder and the police officer that the police officer has that knowledge,” Kilmartin said.

Bills that would give the attorney general’s office exclusive authority did not pass in the General Assembly.

Exeter residents interviewed on Tuesday were not versed on the reasons behind the recall. Most knew only that it had something to do with guns.

“Everybody everywhere should be able to carry guns,” as long as they pass all the qualifications, said David Douglas, 73, of Exeter, finishing lunch at the Exeter Town Pizza on Route 2.

Over on Route 3, Lewis E. Peck was just leaving the Middle of Nowhere Diner. “I’ve never been involved in a recall,” said Peck, who served on the council some years ago. “We’d work the thing out. They should work this out.”